Cutting-Edge Energy Tech Presented At Swiss Energy And Climate Summit

BERN – Everybody knows how annoying it is to run out of battery power for mobile devices. In the same way, storing energy is a continuing issue for renewable energy due to its non-continuous nature. A number of innovations presented at this week’s Swiss Energy and Climate Summit in Bern sought to address that problem.

The yearly event invites Swiss and international speakers to put forward the latest in technology. And according to some participants from start-ups, intellectual property is key, but their IP strategy relies more and more on both patents and trade secrets.

The Swiss Energy and Climate Summit (SwissECS) took place from 16-17 September and hosted a number of start-up presenting their innovative technologies. The 2015 theme of the conference on energy and climate issues was “unlock the potential”.

The theme was chosen in consideration of the need to use energy resources more efficiently and “to protect the environment despite global economic growth,” according to SwissECS. The event hosted some 800 participants from the industry, energy, finance, insurance and construction sectors, as well as nongovernmental organisations, the Swiss government, and cantons, according to the organisers.

Power Storage, Key for Renewable Energy, Electric Cars

Jagdeep Singh, CEO of QuantumScape and founder of several start-ups, presented a new generation of batteries for electric cars. What he called a “revolutionary battery,” still under development, would reduce the cost of current car batteries to a third of the price, with much higher capacity.

The third of CO2 emissions come from oil, the vast majority of which is used in transportation, he said. Some 20 million cars are sold in China every year, yet the car penetration in China is very small. Many years of sharp increases in car consumption are to be expected in China, he said.

QuantumScape seeks to make a battery good enough to penetrate the mainstream electric market and compete with the combustion market, he explained. At present, electric cars have a small range and are very expensive, mostly due to the battery, he added.

Little progress has been made in batteries in the last 20 years, with about 5 percent of increased charge capability per year, he said. To compete with combustion engines, batteries need to double their current performance.

QuantumScape is working on new materials, which now need to be “put in the battery.” “If we can pull this off,” he said – insisting that he believes it will be done – this is an opportunity to electrify the mainstream automobile market and replace the combustion market.

The marketing of the battery could happen within this decade, said Singh. According to Green Car Reports, German carmaker Volkswagen has acquired a small stake in QuantumScape.

Danielle Fong, co-founder and chief scientific officer of LightSail Energy, presented a compressed air storage technology to store excess energy from the wind and sun in large air tanks. Supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the start-up says compressed air technology is an alternative to battery storage.

Solar power is not limited to the world’s resources, she noted. And with solar energy, only 0.6 percent of the world’s surface would be required to power all of the energy needs of humanity. Despite soaring capital expenditures to find new sources of oil, production is faltering, and economic devastation is looming if no alternatives are found, said Fong. However, renewable energy, such as solar energy, is intermittent and needs energy storage.

According to its website, the start-up aims to produce “the world’s cleanest and most economical energy storage systems.”

LightSail’s innovation is based on the fact that compressed air gets hot. The technology captures the heat energy and regenerates it, she explained.

A number of other start-ups presented their projects, most of them in search of new collaborations and funding, such as Lausanne-based Swiss start-up LEDSafari, a start-up providing solar LED lamp kits in developing countries. The start-up is targeting secondary schools with its make-it-yourself kits.

ElectricFeel, also based in Switzerland, provides software that helps cities to better manage demand in transportation sharing systems such as bike and car sharing systems. It provides a tool to operate systems more efficiently.

eSmart, another Swiss-based start-up, provides a system that manages electric features in the house through a wall-mounted touchscreen. The system also allows measurement of the energy used in the house. “In ten years, it will not be possible to ignore how much energy you are using,” co-founder Fabrizio Lo Conte said. It is like having a car without a speedometer.

Alex Schoch, Tesla’s Director Energy EU, presented its new “Powerwall,” a battery for residential and business use. According to SwissECS documentation, the battery is priced at US$3,500, with a capacity of 10kWh. Schoch said although Tesla is an electric car manufacturer, it had always been part of the plan to move to home energy storage.

Although Tesla is known for producing high-end electric cars, it is only a part of the journey, he said, and the company is aiming to move into more affordable vehicles, he said.

Schoch presented Tesla’s Gigafactory, which is to become the largest production of lithium ion batteries in the world.

IP Is Key for Start-Ups, But Patents Not Always First Choice

Participants met by Intellectual Property Watch generally shared the view that intellectual property rights are key to their business. However, the trend in IP strategy seems to have shifted from patents to trade secrets or embedded technology impossible to reverse engineer.

Among the reasons explained to Intellectual Property Watch by participants is the fact that requesting a patent involves detailed disclosure of the invention. Another is that patents are expensive to get and prove financially impossible for small companies to defend.

For Singh, the IP strategy of QuantumScape is two-pronged. Patents are taken on “things that are observable,” he told Intellectual Property Watch, and trade secrets are favoured when it comes to “things that are not observable.”

Also the strategy differs from market to market, he said. In countries where IP is enforceable, such as in the European Union or the United States, patents are useful, but not in countries offering less protection.

Fong said LightSail Energy has a portfolio of 58 patents, and confirmed that IP is very important for the company.

Another participant told Intellectual Property Watch that patent trolls in particular in the US drove some companies to avoid patenting in the US and forego that market.

Trade secrets can be an issue for publication of research, said a representative from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA. It is common practice in research institutions to agree to publish research results once the patent on the discovery has been requested. If companies are reluctant to disclose the invention, that could be detrimental to research publication, she told Intellectual Property Watch.

Power-Blox, a start-up company founded in July, providing power cubes fuelled by solar panels destined for developing countries, also said IP rights are important. Each power cube is enough to power a house in developing countries, the representative told Intellectual Property Watch.

The cubes, which are mainly aimed at small companies, can be connected in parallel and can power larger buildings. The representative indicated interest from Médecins Sans Frontières and the World Health Organization for hospitals or vaccines transport.

As far as software is concerned for Power-Blox, the embedded firmware cannot be reverse-engineered and thus does not necessitate IP protection, he said. The young start-up envisages opening its technology in the coming years.

New UN Sustainable Energy Initiative

Separately, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on 17 September the creation of a new partnership on sustainable energy.

According to a press release, the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4All) which was launched in 2011, will now be spearheaded by a new Sustainable Energy for All Partnership and will be led by the current World Bank Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change Rachel Kyte.

According to SE4All, Kyte’s appointment will be effective as of 1 January 2016.

 

Image Credits: Catherine Saez